Religion vs. Science? Don't Believe It | 2019 SLS

Popular culture, public discourse, and the media are pervaded by endlessly reiterated claims that science and religion are incompatible. But do they represent antagonistic worldviews, the one based on reason and evidence, the other on faith and the rejection of evidence? This self-serving misrepresentation depends on mistaken assumptions about what the natural sciences can and cannot explain, as well as on a cartoonish view of "religion" that makes no distinctions among different religious traditions or theological claims. This lecture will show how the assumption that science and religion are inherently conflictual is mistaken—and how properly understood, whatever is true about the natural world does not and cannot conflict with true religion.

Dr. Brad Gregory

Professor of History and Dorothy G. Griffin Collegiate Chair, University of Notre Dame

Recent studies conducted by the Pew Research Center confirm what many of us have experienced anecdotally—one of the top reasons young people abandon their Christian faith is because they think it conflicts with science. Perhaps this had been influenced by some scientists, labelled the New Atheists, who claim all religious faith is irrational by its very nature.

Join us this spring to discuss these issues with three nationally known Catholic scholars of the intersection of faith, science, and reason. Are science and religion necessarily in conflict? Can faith and science benefit each other? What is the relationship between faith and reason?

Explorations in Faith & Reason is a new spring lecture series that combines Mount Mercy’s President's Lecture, Hesburgh Lecture, and Aquinas Lecture. For more information, visit mtmercy.edu/faith-reason.